Jesse Marx leads SDSU student media into a new era of growth and innovation

Jesse Marx is the newest member of the School of Journalism and Media Studies’ family. Serving as the inaugural Student Media Manager, he is already putting KCR and the Daily Aztec (DA) on a path to success. From more closely mentoring students to creating new courses to support the DA, Marx is using his years of professional journalism experience to accelerate improvement for these essential campus organizations. 

Although only seven months into his new position, Marx is not new to San Diego or even SDSU. In fact, during his time as an associate editor for Voice of San Diego, he would often hire and mentor SDSU students for the Voice of San Diego internship program. In that way, he had created a working relationship with the university and the DA long before he stepped foot on campus. 

“I would take phone calls on the weekends or at night from whoever was the editor-in-chief (of the Daily Aztec) and so they treated me as a de facto advisor,” said Marx. “Now we've just made it official.” 

Originally from outside of Chicago, Marx graduated from Depaul University with a degree in Economics and a minor in Professional Writing. While he was interested in journalism and wrote for his college newspaper, Marx didn’t realize he wanted to pursue journalism professionally until after college. 

“Coming out of college, I realized that I didn't want to be a bond trader and work in finance,” said Marx. “Writing had always been my passion.”

After studying magazine writing and investigative reporting at Columbia University, Marx worked for many different news organizations, including The Oregonian, City Pages, The Desert Sun, Voice of San Diego and the San Francisco Chronicle. Marx became especially interested in covering criminal justice and policing, and his reporting has contributed to reforms at the state and local levels. 

“I like being able to dig into a topic for an extended period of time and not just understand it but go beneath the surface level to get to the truth of what's actually going on,” said Marx.

Marx joined SDSU during a period of change. This past fall, both the Daily Aztec and KCR were moved from Associated Students to JMS. Now under new leadership, Marx wants to make the distinction that he is not here to control the DA and KCR, but to act as more of a resource to the students. 

“I don't want to take anyone's voice away, I want to actually add to what they're already doing,” explained Marx. “And to provide them the skills so that they can do what they want, because it's up to them to figure out what to write about or what to do a podcast about.”

Marx's main duties include overseeing the budget and introducing new training sessions for students working for KCR and the DA. For example, KCR has recently held training sessions with KPBS about Adobe editing and recording in the field. 

For the DA, Marx put them back on publishing two stories a week for the paper, whereas previously each section had only been publishing once a month. 

“A lot of the institutional knowledge, especially at the Daily Aztec, evaporated during the pandemic,” said Marx. “Everybody was split up and siloed.” 

Marx’s goals for the DA include growing leadership, expanding the newsletter and revamping the editorial coverage. Part of these goals will be accomplished by starting a new course in the fall that supports the news operations. 

For KCR, Marx said it's a bit more open-ended.

“I want them to continue to thrive at what they're doing, but I want to give them the skills in order to produce whatever it is they want at a higher level,” said Marx.

While he thinks that the Student Media Manager position will always be around to help with budgeting and purchasing for the organizations, his main goal is to get the students to run all other operations within the DA and KCR. 

“I do think it is to the benefit of all the students to have it housed under JMS and now to have me here as a resource,” Marx concluded. “Not somebody to tell you what to do, but somebody to give you advice. You can say yes or no to it.”